Digital imaging has vastly increased users ability to amass very large numbers of still images, video image sequences, and multimedia records combining one or more images and other content. (Still images, video sequences, and multimedia records are referred to collectively herein with the term “image records”.) With very large numbers of image records, management becomes difficult.
Efforts have been made to aid users in organizing and utilizing image records by assigning metadata to individual image records that indicates a metric of expected value to the user. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003/0128389 A1, filed by Matraszek et al., discloses another measure of image record importance, “affective information”, which can take the form of a multi-valued metadata tag. The affective information can be a manual entry or can be automatically detected user reactions, including user initiated utilization of a particular image, such as how many times an image was printed or sent to others via e-mail. In either case, affective information is identified with a particular user. U.S. Pat. No. 6,671,405 to Savakis et al, discloses another approach, which computes a metric of “emphasis and appeal” of an image, without user intervention. A first metric is based upon a number of factors, which can include: image semantic content (e.g. people, faces); objective features, such as colorfulness and sharpness; and main subject features, such as size of the main subject. A second metric compares the factors relative to other images in a collection. The factors are integrated using a trained reasoning engine. U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0075743 is somewhat similar and discloses image sorting of images based upon user-selected parameters of semantic content or objective features in the images. These approaches place much effort into valuing of all of the images in a collection.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,535,636 is directed to a method for detecting “dud images”, that is, unacceptable images, to determine images that are undesirable for placing in albums.
All of these approaches are useful, particularly in an environment, in which a user is making a deliberate effort to organize images, for example, in creating an album. Another environment, in which image management is needed is during a picture taking session with a digital still camera, cell phone camera, or the like. Some digital cameras, such as, the V-550 digital camera marketed by Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester, N.Y., include a user control labeled “Share”, which can be actuated by the user to designate a respective image for preferential printing and e-mailing. It is convenient to use this user control during a picture taking session to identify images the user considers particularly good. Another environment, in which image management is an issue, is in devices having limited image handling capabilities relative to the overall requirements of a collection of images, such as an image viewer having limited storage capacity relative to received sets of images.
It would thus be desirable to provide methods and camera, in which unacceptable images can quickly and easily be managed on a camera.